The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act Shaping Tomorrow's Students

{text:bookmark-start} The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act {text:bookmark-end} On Teachers   The No Child Left_ Behind Act_ was signed into legislation on January 8, 2002 by President George Bush. The act was designed to promote a standard education for all students and improve our public schools. This was the single most significant piece of legislation signed with an overwhelming amount of support from both parties. In addition to all of the above issues, the law placed great emphasis on accountability. To become more accountable, each state designed curriculums with the most basic and fundamental standards that every child should know across the board. Teachers and school administrators are held completely accountable for making sure that each student meets the standards of the No Child Left Behind Ac_t (NCLB). _   One of the biggest tenets of the NCLB is accountability. Each teacher is responsible for his or her classroom and administering the basic essentials of reading, writing and math. The chief format for delivering these standard blocks of instruction was through testing. In a perfect equation, each state would develop a set of test which were identical and were given to every student to measure their basic level of aptitude. It was thought that if every child received the same basic information that each child would be brought to parity over time. This was an assumption that would prove false. This assumption placed a vast amount of pressure on the teacher to produce good student with the most basic curriculum. After all of this, some of our children are still left behind. Did you know that 68 percent of fourth graders cannot read proficiently at grade level? (U. S. Department of Education, 2000). Did you know that 83 percent of twelfth graders are not proficient in math and that 82 percent of twelfth graders are not proficient in science? (U. S. Department of Education, 2000).   Just as we debate about education being an art as well as a science, we... [continues]

Read full essay